There were a number of things Uzi Doorman had intended to do on her 18th birthday, summoning a demon hadn't been on that list but regardless one stood in the center of her the summoning circle in her room, watching her with a look of concern.
For the early years of her life, there was nothing that really set her apart from any other girl her age. She might have been slightly more assertive than others around her, quick to embarrassment over praise, and had a better head for numbers then most, but beyond those small things there was nothing that would truly set her apart.
That is until her 8th birthday, the day she would wake up and find that her mother had completely vanished.
There hadn't been a note or anything else to act as a prelude to the sudden disappearance. The only thing she would remember from that day was her father's panicked voice as he talked to the officers trying to convince them that his wife was truly missing. Since that day things had changed for Uzi. Her father threw himself into his work, abandoning her just as her mother had. Uzi was alone.
She grew detached from those around her, only growing close to a select few, and losing even that small connection to others.
The morning of her 18th birthday, Uzi found herself shocked out of sleep by the heavily distorted thumping of an anime opening that had been remixed into a nightmare of instruments and voices running at ten times the normal speed. "Don't wanna." Uzi slapped at her bedside before finally hitting the snooze button.
While not a morning person by any measure the fact it was her birthday further drained any desire to escape the comfort of her blankets. After a brief internal struggle trying to justify losing a day of subpar public education she forced herself up and away from the warm comfort of her bed.
She blew through her morning routine quickly, throwing on a purple top with a white skull at its center along with a black skirt and thick black stockings, stuffing her hair beneath a beanie before heading to the kitchen. Sitting at the center of the kitchen table was a stack of cold pancakes topped with whip cream that was already melting and sprinkles that had been pulled off by the now liquid cream, along with a note with some money sitting on it.
Had to leave early, won't be home for dinner so don't wait up. Happy birthday, use the money to get a nice dinner.
Love, Dad
Uzi read that note with an utterly blank expression on her face before unceremoniously dumping it and the pancakes directly into the trash. The money was just as contemptuously crumpled up and tossed into the bottom of her bat shaped backpack as she headed out the door. "If you aren't even going to be there don't bother making me something." she gripped the handle on her bag and set her gaze forward. To Uzi, this was just another day, birthday or not.
The weather was bleak with heavy clouds blocking even the most stubborn sunbeams from breaking through. It only served to make her mood worse as she marched towards school, a scowl affixed to her face.
"Well at least your sunny disposition matches the weather." a young man approached Uzi from behind, giving her a pat on the back and a wry grin.
Uzi rolled her eyes. "Bite me John." She shot a warning look to the young man and he quickly put up his hands in a sign of mock surrender.
"Youch, okay, really bad mood," he laughed and tossed a small wrapped object at the young woman. "Good news for me, giving you a birthday gift isn't going to do make things any worse."
Uzi gave him a look that would send those of weaker constitution running for the hills. "If this is something stupid I'm aiming for your head."
"Please, I learned how to duck ages ago." John joked.
Uzi tore into the wrapping paper quickly enough, revealing a watch with a bat design for its face, the hands within in the shape of small bat wings.
"So you can keep track of all the time you've taken off my life by being lab partners," he answered.
A small hint of red rose to her cheeks. "It was one explosion, get over it already!"
"It burred off my eyebrows for a month, right before pictures for the yearbook." he shook his head, a smile still on his face. "So what do you think?"
Uzi looked down at the watch, running her thumb over it and giving it a close inspection. It wasn't expensive but neither was it a plastic toy. "It's pretty cool…thanks."
"Wow a thank you, looks who's all sentimental." John joked.
"I take it back, get bent Matthews." she growled as she tossed the waded up ball of wrapping paper at his head.
The improvised missile was yanked out of the air. "You shouldn't litter. Or throw things at John.'' The voice came from a young woman a bit taller than Uzi but shorter than John, long black hair falling messily around her shoulders and partially covering the young woman's face. Her voice only had the slightest hint of inflection to it, being only separated from a monotone by a hint of annoyance.
Uzi's eyes flashed to the new arrivals with a hint of weariness, her foot turned just slightly so that if she was forced to make an escape she could.
"Kali we were messing around, no need to be overprotective. Not like a ball of paper can hurt me right?" John took the hand currently holding the paper in his and calmly squished it in his hand as if to prove a point.
Kali glanced between his hand and Uzi before nodding. "I see."
The three of them proceeded to walk in silence at the same pace, Kali remaining between Uzi and John, never taking her eyes off Uzi.
Uzi glanced to the side, her eyes purposefully kept downward and never looking toward the two .Before her mother had disappeared, the three of them had been friends. But much like everything else in Uzi's life things had fallen apart after that event.
Coincidentally, at the time of her mother's disappearance everyone in their class had gotten sick, a fate only herself and John had managed to avoid. Uzi hadn't been exposed to the mystery virus, having been stuck at home by her then hovering father while the police were still investigating. John had been lucky, apparently immune to whatever disease had torn through their class.
The two had later been transferred to different schools, and even though they lived close to one another they simply fell out of sync until eventually they found themselves in the same high school. Things had gone well at first, John was naturally a bit charismatic and had formed a circle of friends around himself, always including Uzi. He never treated it like an obligation, and for the first two years of high school things seemed good for Uzi.
Then, in their third year, John had to up and vanish for two weeks, and when he came back, so had Kali. Except she was different, no longer the girl who ran around the neighborhood with her two friends.
Something about her was naturally off putting, and one by one the circle of friends that had gathered around John slipped away until it was just the three of them.
And then a day came where Kali had cornered Uzi and told her. "Stay away from John, it's too dangerous for you."
There was no implied threat, no act of violence, but the cold look in Kali's eyes and the droning monotone she spoke in had provided enough to force Uzi to keep her distance.
John had done his best to reach out, but with everything else in Uzi's life always drifting away she didn't have the energy to fight for one more.
By the time they reached school Uzi quickly separated from John and Kali, joining the near endless sea of faces that made up the school.
She couldn't help but feel fortunate in the moment that neither John or Kali shared any classes with her. While she might still care about John as a friend, the simple fact was that Kali scared the hell out of her for a reason she couldn't easily describe. Not to mention the persistent warnings to 'stay away', it was more than enough to trigger Uzi's fight or flight response.
Uzi shook her head in order to clear her thoughts, opening up her locker and grabbing the necessary books for her first block of classes, tucking them under her arm before slamming the locker closed, nearly jumping out of her skin as the closed door revealed someone on the other side. "Jesus what is it with people being cats today?"
The pale face of another classmate gave her a blank look with only a single raised eyebrow. "I was unaware that cats could be people." her tone was dry but without a hint of mockery.
It took Uzi a moment to push her annoyance down before responding. "They can't."
The girls frowned. "That's disappointing."
A moment of silence fell between the two before Uzi broke it by asking. "Was there something you needed from me Kirie?"
Kirie inclined her head in the affirmative. "I came to warn you that Lizzy and Julie mentioned they had something planned for you in homeroom, I thought you should know."
Uzi let out a long suffering groan at the announcement, hitting the back of her head against the wall of lockers. Lizzy and Julie were the two most popular girls in school by a wide margin, and for some unexplainable reason they had chosen Uzi as their favored target for pranks or just random acts of bullying. What she had done to get herself targeted was utterly beyond Uzi, she barely interacted with anyone in school since her group had gone their separate ways, and even before then their social spheres were utterly separate from one another.
"Thanks for letting me know." Uzi couldn't help but think that whatever they had planned would at least lose a little bite if she walked in knowing they were going to do something to her.
Kriie simply nodded her head in response to the thanks. "It's what Max would have done if he was here."
"Yeah, probably." Uzi agreed. Max had been another in their small group before they had broken apart, probably one of the smartest students that went to their school in terms of engineering, being neck and neck with Uzi when it came to sheer mechanical knowledge. "Any news when he will come back?"
Kirie had always been close to Max, similar to how Kali was to John, but Kirie had a somewhat normal impression of a girl that likes a boy, the complete opposite of Kali's obsession. . Uzi only had to explain to Kirie once that she only liked Max as a friend before Kirie accepted her presence.. Since then the two got along well enough that they still touched base with one another even after things had fallen apart. They weren't friends in the traditional sense, but neither was there any animosity between the two.
"Sadly no, the future father of my children has been too busy in his internship to have time for any substantial contact." Kirie spoke the entire line in an utterly flat voice.
Uzi simply blinked. "I don't know how to respond to that."
"People tell me that often." If she was offended by the reply Kirie didn't show it, instead walking alongside Uzi to their shared homeroom. "Would it be better if I went in first?"
After drawing in a deep breath to fortify herself Uzi shook her head. "No, whatever they have planned for me is probably going to suck no matter what, might as well just deal with it head on. Besides, if I know about it, how bad could it-"
Within the first moment of the door being fully opened her two tormentors both pulled back on the string of the party poppers they were holding. Normally full of nothing but confetti, the ones these girls had chosen were full of glitter which clung to Uzi's skin and clothing the same way a drowning man might cling to a lifeboat. It was luck more than reaction that allowed Uzi to raise an arm and block the offending glitter from hitting her eyes,
However as she lowered her arm she almost wished her eyes had taken damage. The sight of her classmates grouped behind Lizzy and Julie was bad enough, but they had somehow rigged up a banner to hang in the classroom, colored with the most obnoxious, loudest possible array of colors with the words 'Happy Birthday Suzzy' spelled out in equally bright colors.
"Yeah sorry about the name, at least we got close." Julie's smile was near viper -like, but to anyone who didn't know the co-captain of the cheerleaders it would seem perfectly innocent.
"Not exactly a lot of girls named after guns," Lizzy added, the emptied popper still aimed in Uzi's direction.
The two of them were the very picture of the popular cheerleader, both with perfectly kept short blonde hair and wearing their cheerleading outfits for the game that would take place afterschool, Lizzy's only having a touch more flair to mark her as the captain of the team.
Uzi was frozen, feeling the eyes of all her classmates on her as if waiting for her to say something. But this wasn't a situation that she had ever prepared for, on top of already being bad with people it felt like she was being trapped by all sides. If she got angry at them they would play it off as if she wasn't grateful and end up making things even worse for her. "I…" her entire body felt trapped, and by the looks in the two girls' eyes it seemed like they were just about to strike.
However before anything further could be said Uzi felt a wave of cold strike her from behind, and when she turned a dripping water bottle was being held in Kirie's hand. "Oh darn, my hand slipped." she stepped forward, her gaze set on the two girls without a hint of emotion. "Guess we should get you to the office to dry off."
From her position behind Kirie, Uzi couldn't see Julie's eyes flash a deep gold for a moment, her smile dropping to become a predatory snarl. In seeming response Kirie just gave a smile, her eyes sinking to pinpricks as black began to flood into her eyes. The two held each other's gaze for a moment before Julie broke first, letting out a minute growl of annoyance.
"Ah that's too bad, but Uzi is a bit of a wet blanket so it fits, right?" Lizzy turned away, the voices of the students in the classroom whispering to one another as Kirie took Uzi by the shoulder and walked her out of the class after receiving a wave from the teacher to just go.
"Thanks." Uzi finally managed to speak as they stepped away from the classroom. They made their way to the office in silence, Kirie staying long enough to explain why they were there before being sent back to class. Uzi however was allowed to stay until her shirt dried off, given a towel and told to work on her schoolwork or read.
Uzi put her head against the wall, letting out a sigh and trying to figure out if she could at least wait out the rest of her first period of the day when another door in the office opened, revealing another familiar face.
"Uzi hey! Blow up another Chem set?" a young man grinned and walked over to Uzi. He was fairly well built and carried himself with a fair amount of confidence, his hair hidden under a baseball cap.
"It was one time, why is everyone bringing it up!?" Uzi grumbled for a moment before focusing back on the young man. "What are you doing in the office Thad?"
Thad was one of the stars of the schools football team, putting him firmly in the highest echelons of the schools pecking order. However unlike most he was the kind of guy who didn't really worry too much about who was who or what group they belonged in, making him one of the most universally loved students around campus. Back when Uzi still had friends, he'd been one of the last to leave, trying to keep everyone together after John had transferred.
He was also Uzi's first boyfriend. Ex Boyfriend, now.
"Eh the big game is coming up so the principal wanted to give me a pep talk I guess," he shrugged as if being called out of class just to get told to do his best was something normal. "Not like I was going to try and screw up before he told me, kinda a drag."
Uzi couldn't help but laugh at how easy going he was, it seemed to her that no matter what happened he would be the same easy going guy she had been introduced to all those years ago. "Yeah but you have to get used to some special treatment by now."
Thad waved it off before focusing on Uzi, noticing the towel around her and frowning. "What about you? Are Lizzy and Julie still bullying you?" his eyes ran over the bright glitter that currently covered the front of her outfit. "I can talk to them if you want?"
Uzi looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Did that work the last twelve times?"
"Guess it didn't, huh?" Thad's smile dipped slightly.
Seeing the expression on his face Uzi wanted to say something, anything, to change the atmosphere of the conversation. If Max was here he would have interrupted something about a new experiment, John would have made a joke and broken the tension. But when it was just her, all she could do was make things awkward and leave it up to someone else to fix.
"Well still, I'll try and talk to them …again…," Thad finally broke the silence before turning and walking to the exit. "Hey Uzi…take care of yourself okay?"
Uzi couldn't meet his eyes, simply looking away. "Yeah, I always do."
The rest of the day passed in a haze for Uzi, it seemed that Lizzy and Julie had only the plan set for homeroom. Other than a few passing muttering she didn't have to deal with a loud birthday wish from anyone else. The moment the bell rang she rushed directly toward the door.
Just as she started to make her escape she was pulled from the sea of students making their way to the exit and thrown against a locker. "Hey there freak." Lizzy kept Uzi pinned against the locker with her hand, leaving not even an inch between them. "Missed out on homeroom today? Lucky~"
Uzi grit her teeth and raised up a hand to push Lizzy's arm off of her but found she couldn't get her to so much as budge. "Don't you have anything better to do?"
"I'll always have time for you." She brought her free hand to Uzi's stomach, fully intent on shoving her once more against the lockers.
A hand fell on Lizzy's shoulder, suddenly wrenching the cheerleader back with enough force that she nearly hit the floor. "That is John's locker, waste time somewhere else." Kali kept her eyes on Lizzy, there was no passion in the gaze but there was a challenge, the terrifying visage of the emotionless young woman against the anger in Lizzy's.
Lizzy broke first, turning and brushing past the few students who had milled about to see what was going on. However with the show over they dispersed, leaving only Uzi and Kali.
"Why did you do that?" Uzi made sure to keep the distance between the two of them.
Kali tilted her head for a moment before delivering her answer. "Because you being hurt makes John sad."
Uzi digested that answer for a moment before turning away. "...Thanks I guess." as she made her way out she couldn't help but mutter under her breath. "If it mattered to him he shouldn't have left in the first place."
Kali blinked, then put her hand on the locker and suddenly it opened with a small click, revealing a long knife piercing through the door, hidden behind where Uzi had been standing, a hairs breadth away from ripping into her back. She looked around the now empty hallway with a look of annoyance on her face.
"I don't care what you are doing, but don't involve John." she pulled the knife out, holding it between her fingers. Her eyes flashed a deep gold for a moment and the blade was torn to shreds of metal, pressed into the cut in the locker and molded back into place. "Understand?"
Nothing spoke up to answer, but the lockers through the hallway shook and banged, filling it with noise before going silent.
"Good," Kali closed the locker door. "I'm glad we agree."
Uzi's walk home was quiet, no further bullying attempts or old friends making things difficult for her, just a silent walk to an empty house. After dropping off her things she collapsed on the couch in the living room, flipping through channels and trying to figure out what to do for dinner. "Dad is just going to get something while he is out, no point getting extra."
Before she could order anything however the doorbell gave off a chime, followed by a loud call. "Delivery for, what really, Uzi 'Dorman'... Dor-man. Who the fuck has the name 'Doorman'? That's stupid. At least an Uzi is a cool name, top ten guns at least. C'mon is anybody here, I got things to do!"
Being more bemused than concerned, Uzi made her way over and opened the door, finding the person on the other side was about a head shorter than her and wearing an extremely baggy jacket and holding a small package in his hands. "Hi?" She had seen the local delivery guy a few times when she had ordered parts for her personal projects, and the guy with the package certainly wasn't him.
"Finally, I can't believe that bird bastard made me get out of bed for this," the man shoved the package directly into Uzi's arms before pulling a tablet from behind his back and offering it to her. "Sign there Emo Top."
Uzi bit her tongue and scribbled out a quick signature on the tablet. "Who sent this anyway?"
The smaller man laughed and tossed the tablet into the air, somehow catching it behind himself. "Hell if I know, it's not my problem anymore." he turned around and left, a whistle following him
Uzi closed the door before looking over the package, finding it wrapped in brown paper and sealed tight with white twine. After shaking there was only one conclusion Uzi could draw about the object. "A book?" She quickly found a pair of scissors and cut into the twine, tearing the paper off to find a beautifully bound black leather book, its pages shining a bright silver. The book had an attached long, red ribbon, marking a page somewhere in the middle . There weren't words on the cover, instead a bright gold symbol showing three arrows jutting out from a hexagon with another smaller hexagon trapped inside of it.
She decided to flip open the first page, looking on the inside of the cover and found a handwritten note within.
Dear Uzi,
I hope you never have to read this note, that the day you get this book I am sitting down with you and drinking hot chocolate as I explain everything that you need to know in order to deal with everything that you are no doubt soon to discover. But if you are, then I've probably been gone for years and this book was delivered by someone I trust, or at least a third party working on their behalf. There isn't enough time for me to put everything here, but this book is important and you need to keep it safe. I love you more than you can ever imagine, and I am so sorry.
Love,
Nori Doorman, Your Mother
Uzi's hands began to shake as she read through the note again and again, her breath becoming heavier with each read as tears stung her eyes. She quickly opened the book to the next page, only to find it was blank. "What?" She flipped quickly through the book, finding each page was the exact same, until opening to the page bookmarked, the mark having the same symbol as the cover of the book, and showing the text ' To Make a Wish Come True ', along with a set of instructions.
Uzi didn't believe in magic beyond what could be pulled off on a stage in Vegas with a few lights and sleight of hand, but even with her disbelief she didn't want to think that her mother would leave her with a nearly empty book for no purpose. Beyond that, it wasn't like Uzi had anything else going on, and if it turned out to be some dumb joke nobody would be able to prove she fell for it.
So, feeling stupid each step of the way she collected everything the instructions called for, making substitutions where she needed to. Hopefully the spell didn't care if the circle of candles happened to come in different scents. After setting everything up she turned off the lights in the house, leaving the only thing casting any sort of brightness being the candles. "Okay, so." she looked down at the page. "Lets see what you left me Mom."
Uzi drew in a breath and began. "I now begin this ritual, binding the four gates with four keepers. To the South I call Death Itself who holds dominion over all monsters."
Far away in the depths of a forest a being cloaked in black stood over the form of a massive winged creature, a scythe held in a hand of bone. A breeze pushed through the area, making the leaves dance above it, the ticking of a clock ringing out from seemingly nowhere. The figure looked up for a moment before vanishing, the creature's body rotted down to nothing, not even bones.
"To the East I call Tiamat, the chained lord of the oceans and all the horrors hidden within them."
Looking down upon the world from the heavens themselves the Moon began to rock, tremors that would have torn apart cities and laid human civilization to waste rolled across the entirety of its surface. Unheard from any ears was the roar of something deep and primal, before the surface settled one more.
"To the West I invoke the name of Cyn, who crafts the fabric of the Absolute and holds dominion over all Witchcraft." In a dark pit sat a young woman surrounded by chains that seemed to stretch into infinity, piercing through her flesh and striking deep into the equally black surface just beneath her feet. The figure hung limp in its state, before suddenly raising its head, eyes glowing red as a grin pulled over its mouth, gleaming white teeth revealed against utter darkness.
"And finally to the North I beseech Lucifer, who holds dominion over all Demons and Fallen souls."
A man dressed in bright white worked over a desk in a workshop covered floor to ceiling in rubber ducks in thousands of different sizes and shapes, bent over and running a brush over one as another person swept the ducks into piles. He suddenly looked up, eyes seemingly looking at nothing before smiling wide, teeth sharp as a bear trap. "Well isn't that interesting?"A figure behind him stopped, causing him to turn and throw his half finished creation at him. "Did I tell you to stop? You have a few thousand years of executions you need to work off, no slacking!" The figure shot up straight and went back to work. "Well I have no reason to refuse," the man snapped his fingers. "Good luck, whoever you are."
The candles that had been burning softly before suddenly exploded up in pillars of purple flame, nearly causing Uzi to fall back in terror at the sudden development. But something kept her feet planted on the ground, still reading from the book. She didn't know if she could stop even if you wanted to at this point.
"Each gate set this circle is sealed, I cast out my line to both tie and bind. To any equal to my request I call you forth!"
Throughout the world an unseen pulse of power pushed forth, unnoticeable to the average person; it nonetheless could be felt by all those who existed beyond the natural world. From their places in the dark beasts long forgotten howled, beings nestled in human skin shivered, and spirits long bound roused from their slumber. At a certain cheer practice both head and co-captain of the team stumbled, hands held to their heads as if in the sudden throes of a migraine.
In a large mansion on the edge of the town an emotionless young woman looked at a picture of a boy and girl, the girl's face crossed out with a red marker. She practiced a smile that never reached her eyes again and again, a cat missing portions of its body sleeping atop a bed behind her. Suddenly the image in the mirror shifted, changing from her face into that of a monstrous ghoul with wide empty sockets. She brought a fist up and shattered the mirror, breath heavy even as her blood slid down its broken surface.
"Walpurgisnacht comes, where dreams made in the dark come true, answer mine and in return I will grant yours. So hear my plea."
In a facility built in the middle of nowhere a boy confidently moved through the hallways, a pair of goggles resting on his forehead. Around him screams of panic and alarms blaring could be heard as the various things within the faculty had suddenly been thrown into fits of violence all at once. But he never stopped moving, even as people rushed past him or told him to run. With a swipe of a stolen keycard he entered into a forbidden room filled with machinery and looked at his prize at the center, a cube that sat surrounded by advanced equipment meant to keep it under constant monitoring. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and picked it up, watching as the cube seemed to pulse, a pair of circular red eyes appearing on the face closest to him.
"Who…are you?" a feminine voice came from the cube.
The young man nearly staggered back in panic, but righted himself before answering. "I'm…your administrator."
"My administrator…" the cube parroted his words. "Understood, can I know your name?"
"Max, now stay quiet, we have to go." He quickly stored the cube under his jacket and ran out of the room alongside the others fleeing the faculty, hoping that his bike was still stashed where he had left it when he started this internship.
"I want…" Uzi closed her eyes, feeling embarrassed as her one true desire was being pulled from the depths of her mind as if something had wrapped its fist around it and yanked it, allowing no chance for a lie. "I want someone who will never abandon me. I want a friend."
The circle created by the candles glowed a deep purple, the symbol from the book glowing in its center a bright gold that burned the eyes to look at too closely. Voices erupted in Uzi's mind, clawing through her brain and sending her falling down to her knees clutching her head.
Somewhere deep and forgotten the most dangerous beings in creation sat and waited in nothingness. Time never passed, light never came, it was in this place that only things that were better left forgotten rotted until the end of all things. However this unchanging place suddenly shifted, a symbol appearing in the air and casting down light for the first time since the creation of the place. Thousands of voices called out at once, reaching forward toward the light. However all fell silent and paused their reaching as a figure stood up, shrinking back as it looked up to the light. "Who will never abandon you." it stood, blade like wings coming from its back as it rose up. "I-"
All at once the light exploded outward, filling the room with a purple mist as the candles burned down to near the end of their wicks. Standing in the now barely lit circle was a young man in a heavy jacket and wearing a cap on his head, showing only the hint of pure silver hair beneath it. For a moment he simply stood there, before offering his hand and giving Uzi a warm smile. "Hey there, you said you were wanting a friend?"
Uzi looked at the figure for a moment, taking his hand in her own and feeling a pulse of power flow between them. "I- '' before she could say anything a wave of exhaustion struck her, sending her forward into the young man's arms who held her closely.
"Get some rest, you aren't alone anymore."
In a dark and forgotten space a web extended far into the black that surrounded it. At the center of the web sat what appeared to be a hand puppet in the shape of a purple rabbit with no eyes and a black bowtie. Everything sat in a state of stillness, until the web began to quake and dance, causing the hand puppet to dance atop the webs.
"Ah, the last invitation has been sent." The voice cut through the black as the puppet began to writhe in its position at the center of the web, a shrill laugh coming from it.
Legs emerged from the bottom of the puppets cloth body, thin bladed legs sharp enough to rend flesh from bone slid out and touched down on the webs, allowing the puppet to draw itself up, its cloth body hanging to the side.
The puppets head split, revealing a single row of needle like teeth as the same shrill laugh once more escaped from it. "Betting is now open on our last contestant, so what will it be?"
All around the web blazing red eyes appeared, unnatural and brimming with power, each of them seemed transfixed on something that wasn't there.
"Death?" the puppet tilted to the right. "Or glory?" it tilted itself to the left, its mouth taking the shape of a mocking grin.
"Shall we ponder on the answer?"